Author: Sapa

Ghanaian students’ rocketing ambitions

Their project might not sound like much: On Wednesday college students in Ghana launched a tiny model of a satellite the size of a Coke can on a big yellow balloon.

It went up to a height of 165 metres and then came back down attached to a parachute.

Deployable CanSat floats back down to earth on a parachute following its test launch. (AP)
A Deployable CanSat floats back down to earth on a parachute following its test launch. (AP)

Ambitious organisers in the West African country – who recently launched the Ghana Space Science and Technology Centre – see the test as a sign of bigger things to come.

“We hope that this practical demonstration of what can be done by students like them will generate more enthusiasm, fire up their imagination to come up with more creative things, and show that it’s possible that they’ll one day be able to launch their own real satellite into orbit,” said Prosper Kofi Ashilevi, director of the space centre which marked its one-year anniversary earlier this month.

The effort has drawn some skepticism, acknowledged Samuel H. Donkor, the president of All Nations University.

“They think it is a pipe dream, a waste of money,” said Donkor, who has directed $50 000 to the programme.

But Ashilevi, the space centre director, said it was essential for local universities to train students with a passion for space.

“Some wonder why we couldn’t concentrate on our problems of water, sanitation, health, all those things. I categorically disagree,” he said. “Space will help African countries who are very serious with it to leapfrog their development because it cuts across all sectors of the economy.”

Experts say Ghana is probably a good five years or more from developing its own operational satellites, which could one day be used to confront everything from natural disasters to the smuggling of natural resources.

Wednesday’s project, though, started at All Nations University with just a big balloon to carry aloft the miniature model of a satellite, known as a Deployable CanSat. The device reached a height of about 165 metres, just shy of the students’ 200-metre goal.

Students prepare the balloon used to conduct a test launch of a Coke-can sized satellite at All Nations University in Koforidua, Ghana. (AP)
Students prepare the balloon used to conduct a test launch of a Coke-can sized satellite at All Nations University in Koforidua, Ghana. (AP)
The Coke-can sized satellite. (AP)
The mini-satellite. (AP)

Owen Hawkins, business development manager for Surrey Satellite Technology in the United Kingdom, called Wednesday’s project “very, very exciting”.

“Ghana is quite a small country and they’re already punching above their weight by doing things like that,” Hawkins said.

It was the first time Ghana has sent a Deployable CanSat into the air, said Manfred Quarshie, director of the Intelligent Space Systems Laboratory at All Nations University College in Koforidua.

Six students spent three months preparing the model, outfitting it with sensors, cameras and Global Positioning System technology, Quarshie said.

It was not without its fair share of challenges. The students initially hoped to launch the CanSat with a rocket, but discovered authorities would not give them permission to import one.

“They think you are going to use it as a missile, like a terrorist,” said Benjamin Bonsu, the lab’s 29-year-old project manager.

They eventually settled on lifting the CanSat with a balloon.

As it floated back to the ground, the device recorded temperature and air pressure readings that were read aloud to the cheering crowd of about 100 students and local officials. The descent lasted less than 30 seconds.

A second device failed to deploy, but Donkor, the university president, said that hitch had not detracted from the event.

“The students are quite excited and very happy,” he said. “There is a lot of enthusiasm throughout the country that we are even daring to do something like this.” – Sapa-AP

Flipping flip-flops into art

The colourful handmade giraffes, elephants and warthogs made in a Nairobi workshop were once only dirty pieces of rubber cruising the Indian Ocean’s currents.

Kenya’s Ocean Sole sandal recycling company is cleaning the East African country’s beaches of used, washed-up flip-flops and other sandals.

About 45 workers in Nairobi make 100 different products from the discarded flip-flops. In 2008, the company shipped an 18-foot giraffe to Rome for display during a fashion week.

(Pic courtesy of Marula Studios & UniquEco)
(Pic courtesy of Marula Studios & UniquEco)

Founder Julie Church says the goal of her company is to create products that people want to buy, then make them interested in the back-story.

Workers wash the flip-flops, many of which show signs of multiple repairs. Artisans then glue together the various colours, carve the products, sand and rewash them.

(Pic courtesy of Marula Studios & UniquEco)
(Pic courtesy of Marula Studios & UniquEco)
(Pic courtesy of Marula Studios & UniquEco)
(Pic courtesy of Marula Studios & UniquEco)

Church first noticed Kenyan children turning flip-flops into toy boats around 1999, when she worked as a marine scientist for WWF and the Kenya Wildlife Service on the country’s coast near the border with Somalia.

Turtles hatching on the beach had to fight their way through the debris on beaches to get to the ocean, Church said, and a plan to clean up the debris and create artistic and useful items gained momentum. WWF ordered 15 000 key rings, and her eco-friendly project took off.

It has not made Church rich, however. The company turns over about $150 000 a year, she said. Last year it booked a small loss.

But new investment money is flowing in, and the company is in the midst of rebranding itself from its former name – the FlipFlop Recycling Company – to Ocean Sole.

The company aims to sell 70% of its products outside Kenya. It has distributors in the United States, Europe and new inquiries from Japan. Its biggest purchasers are zoos and aquariums.

(Pic courtesy of Marula Studios & UniquEco)
(Pic courtesy of Marula Studios & UniquEco)

One of Church’s employees is Dan Wambui, who said he enjoys interacting with visitors who come to the Nairobi workshop.

“They come from far … when they see what we are doing we see them really happy and they are appreciating. We feel internationally recognized and we feel happy about it,” Wambui said. – Joe Mwihia for Sapa-AP

Ethiopia celebrates return of iconic fossil ‘Lucy’

Not even a head of state can expect this kind of reception in Ethiopia.

When two heavy suitcases with the remains of Lucy were brought to the national museum in Addis Ababa on Wednesday, there was no holding back the emotions of onlookers and even journalists.

The 3.2-million-year-old fossil of a female hominid had been on tour throughout the United States for the past five years. Now Lucy is back in her African homeland. A woman wearing traditional African garb even offered a red rose to welcome Lucy’s return.

“There was a feeling of emptiness in Ethiopia while she was away,” said anthropology professor Berhane Asfaw, who has been researching human evolution for the past 30 years. “Lucy is an icon for all the people in the country.”

US palaeoanthropologist Donald Johanson, who made the discovery of the bones in the Afar Triangle in 1974, also did not pass up the opportunity to take part in the welcoming ceremonies.

“Lucy has a message that overcomes all cultural barriers,” Johanson said. “She is proof that the seven billion people in the world all have the same origin and that basically speaking, we are all Africans.”

But this alone does not explain the worldwide fascination for the skeleton of the “Australopithecus afarensis”, a primate closely related to the Homo genus, which includes modern-day human beings. Johanson said he believes people see more than just a fossil in Lucy.

“She is like a person with whom they can identify,” he said. “In addition, there is naturally an extremely attractive name that comes with it.”

A rare find: the skull of a hominid child known as Australopithecus afarensis, who palaeontologists say lived at a key stage in primate evolution more than three million years ago. (AFP)
A rare find: the skull of a hominid child known as Australopithecus afarensis, who palaeontologists say lived at a key stage in primate evolution more than three million years ago. (AFP)

Lucy got her name because on that November night when Johanson’s team discovered the bones, a tape cassette was playing the Beatles’ song Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds.

And what was everyday life like for human-like species back then?

“We assume that Lucy lived in forest areas and was a vegetarian,” Johanson said.

She might have also eaten crocodile and bird eggs, he said, “and she lived more of a nomadic life while sleeping in nests up in the trees as protection against wild animals.”

In her Ethiopian homeland, Lucy is called “dinknesh,” which means the wondrous one. The find was the first proof that our human predecessors could already walk upright 3.2 million years ago.

Although some human-like bones have been found dating back six million years ago, worldwide, it is the name Lucy that has become synonymous with the origin of the human species.

Ethiopia is often mentioned in the same breath as drought and starvation. Its people have long been trying to throw off this negative image, and they have become proud that, thanks to Lucy, the country is also dubbed the “cradle of humanity”.

“There was a huge uproar when she was sent to the United States in 2007,” a taxi driver who gave his name only as Tewodros said. “Many people thought the government had sold Lucy to America.”

Some of the cities in which Lucy was displayed were Houston, Seattle and New York, and the interest was huge. At the same time, the bones were studied further. Now the studies are to be continued in a complex built in the national museum in Addis Ababa.

“The new Ethiopian laboratories meet the highest standards,” Johanson said. “I have no worries whatsoever about Lucy.”

From next Tuesday, the roughly 1-metre tall primate would be unveiled to the public. A five-day special exhibition would make it possible for people to see the original.

After that, however, the skeleton will once again vanish behind thick walls for its own protection. What Ethiopians would have then is a copy of her in the museum – along with the knowledge that Lucy is finally back on her home soil. – Sapa-dpa